


A candle on the bedside table

by bitterwintersnow



Series: His Bedside [1]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23103958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitterwintersnow/pseuds/bitterwintersnow
Summary: After several months of having her around every day, the weight of everything that happened catches up when he is alone.
Relationships: Grace Burgess/Tommy Shelby, Tommy Shelby/Original Character(s), Tommy Shelby/Original Female Character(s), Tommy Shelby/Reader
Series: His Bedside [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1674487
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39





	A candle on the bedside table

**Author's Note:**

> Something based on the song Hallelujah by Nick Cave I had to give some shape and form to. It’s very vague, not really tied to any particular event in the show, except maybe a slight hint on Grace if you want to interpret it that way but that’s only because I had Tommy in mind when writing this.

He told her not to come this weekend.

It’s been several months since she’s been around every day. After all that happened, he wasn’t really in a state he could handle himself on his own. It was a routine. She prepared his meals, ran him a bath - at the beginning, she helped him wash himself as well, before he was able to do it on his own again - changed bandages and when the blood from his wounds soaked through, she changed the sheets as well.

But as the physical pain slowly faded in the haze of medication and long sleep, bandages were slowly removed one by one. She still came around every day to help him out. Tending to his wounds as she said, even though there were barely any at this point. Only the constant dull ache of his entire being no amount of morphine could relieve.

The Saturday morning came and she wasn’t around. The house was completely silent when he woke up. No sounds from the kitchen, no creaking of the floor under another pair of feet walking around. The candle on his bedside table was melted from the previous night, wax hardened in small drippings hanging from the candlestick. Usually by the time he woke up a new candle was already there. This was the sign he was truly alone today.

He was sitting by the window, eating breakfast he managed to put together with his unfocused mind when rain started to pour and wind picked up. And suddenly, as he sat in an empty kitchen and watched trees bending outside, he got this inexplicable urge to go out. To walk. To walk for a long time. Raindrops were hitting the glass with a mighty force when he stood up from the table and without even taking his coat, he left the house.

The road was muddy after he left the cobblestones on the edge of town. He walked through puddles, in rain and wind, clothes soaking wet. He had no idea where he was going, what the purpose or destination of his trail was. He just knew he needed to walk. Passing all the familiar landscapes, fields and meadows with grazing cows. They didn’t mind the rain. It didn’t bother them. It didn’t bother him either. The wind attacked his back but he gave into that cold embrace.

He kept walking. The muddy road and clothes sticking to his body were everything he had left. There was nothing else for him, nothing else left of him. Ever since all of it went down, the wounds, the pain, the reality of the bed, disturbed sleep and the four walls became his world. And today, as she wasn’t around for the first time in months, it became more obvious to him. The weight of it all caught up and met him all alone.

He got distracted from his thoughts when he saw a house on the hill. He didn’t remember there being a house before. It was a long way but he got curious. He passed this road numerous times in the past, daily almost. How did he not notice a house out in the open before?

The house was small, it looked cosy. It almost seemed abandoned but there was a small candlelight by the window. He was mesmerized by it, a tiny flame, safely inside, out of the wet and cold. Burning peacefully. And then a movement behind the curtain. A woman opened the door. She was young, beautiful and so bloody familiar.

“Can I help you?” she asked and at the sound of her voice he felt a lump in his throat. He remained silent.

“You are so drenched. Come inside.”

He wanted to. He stood there in rain, wind in his back, water dripping into his eyes that may as well have been tears. The familiar woman was radiating pleasant heat, rosy cheeks beaming. He almost felt the warmth on his skin. She was beautiful, her eyes were soft and she was exactly how he remembered her. The house was warm as well, it welcomed him, it called him to come in from the cold wind. He so desperately wanted to go inside.

But his body didn’t move. His eyes went back to the window with the candle he saw. The wax had melted and dripped to the table; smoke rising from the blackened knot. Just like the candle at his night stand this morning. It was her who changed the candle for him when she was around. He remembered she would never let him go out in this weather. She wouldn’t let him walk into the beautiful and familiar woman’s house that appeared on the hillside. She would talk sense into him in the haze of pain medication and stirring emotion and he would melt into her touch, accept the temporary salvation of her care and patience.

He reverted his look back to the familiar woman, holding the door opened for him, calling him in. And then, with his eyes burning, he turned where he stood and without a word, he went the same road he walked before.

When he opened the door of his home, she was there. Standing in the dusky kitchen, putting her coat on in what looked like a hurry.

“I told you, you needn’t have to come this weekend.”

“I know,” she said softly, her eyes meeting his, relief hiding behind the reflection of the last bits of daylight, “but I had a bad feeling.”

They stood in silence, only the sound of rain and water from his clothes dripping on the floor.

“How long have you been here?”

“I’ve got here just a moment ago. Couldn’t find you in the house but your coat was still in the hallway, I got worried. I was about to start looking for you.”

“I am fine, I needed to… I needed a walk.”

“I can see that.”

She wasn’t the familiar woman from the house on the hill. But here she was.

He walked the distance between them and put his drenched head on her shoulder. She wrapped her hands around him, heavy on the soaked shirt sticking to his torso.

“You are freezing. I’ll run you a hot bath.”

“Thank you,” he said, his hands finding her back. He was shivering now and his lids felt heavy. But he knew he was safe. As long as she was here.

He lifted his head from her shoulder and kissed her. Softly, but it felt like a world to him. A candle at his bedside table, the calming touch when all that his world became was pain and the four walls of a room. She was part of his world, his salvation, as the hard rain poured outside and the wind moaned, he found himself safely in her arms.


End file.
